Satire In General Prologue, Pardoner's Tale
What Do You Mean?
(Chaucer’s Use of Satire in General Prologue, Pardoner’s Tale, and Wife of Bath) What in the heck do you mean? Isn’t that a use of satire one might ask? Satire is saying one thing and meaning another. It is a perfect example of irony. Irony can be seen in our everyday lives and is greatly used throughout comedy and poetry. Especially in the old poetry. Satire can also be seen as a slightly different version of sarcasm depending on how it is used in context. There is a great deal of satire in any aspect of life if you choose to look hard enough. It is used mostly by women, once one does their research well enough. Women like to use it when they are talking to their men and accusing them of something and they decide to try …show more content…
Throughout the General Prologue, the Catholic Church is displayed as a very hypocritical organization and that is the reason that people and members of the church are starting to lose faith. It’s also an explanation as to why the world was becoming more and more corrupted and why people were not happy in their daily lives. They struggled from day to day to be happy and survive. The Black Plague swept through and took many lives and it angered each of the people. They never thought once that it could have been because of the corruption and hypocrisy within the church. The book of James in the Bible has a great statement about hypocrisy and greatly defines how the hypocrisy was affecting the rest of the people. It states “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that --- and shudder.” (Bible, James 2: 14-19) …show more content…
It has been stated that “greed is the root of all evil” and the Pardoner even preaches this in his sermon that he preaches each and every time and has down by memory. In the prologue that the Pardoner gives of himself, he states that “I preach, as you have heard me say before, And tell a hundred lying mockeries more. I take great pains, and stretching out my neck To east and west I crane about and peck Just like a pigeon sitting on a barn. My hands and tongue together spin the yarn And all my antics are a joy to see. The curse of avarice and cupidity Is all my sermon, for it frees the pelf. Out come the pence, and specially for myself, For my exclusive purpose is to win And not at all to castigate their sin. Once dead what matter how their souls may fare? They can go blackberrying, for all I care!” What the Pardoner is pretty much saying is that he preaches against greed and doing things for self gain, yet he turns around and does his preaching for greed and gain. He can make money off of the individuals that are brought to him so he can forgive them of their sins. The Pardoner says that this whole thing is like a game to him and he doesn’t honestly care what happens to people’s souls after they die. He only wants to make money and benefit at the expense of other individuals. There is extreme satire in the preaching’s of the Pardoner. He doesn’t
(Chaucer’s Use of Satire in General Prologue, Pardoner’s Tale, and Wife of Bath) What in the heck do you mean? Isn’t that a use of satire one might ask? Satire is saying one thing and meaning another. It is a perfect example of irony. Irony can be seen in our everyday lives and is greatly used throughout comedy and poetry. Especially in the old poetry. Satire can also be seen as a slightly different version of sarcasm depending on how it is used in context. There is a great deal of satire in any aspect of life if you choose to look hard enough. It is used mostly by women, once one does their research well enough. Women like to use it when they are talking to their men and accusing them of something and they decide to try …show more content…
Throughout the General Prologue, the Catholic Church is displayed as a very hypocritical organization and that is the reason that people and members of the church are starting to lose faith. It’s also an explanation as to why the world was becoming more and more corrupted and why people were not happy in their daily lives. They struggled from day to day to be happy and survive. The Black Plague swept through and took many lives and it angered each of the people. They never thought once that it could have been because of the corruption and hypocrisy within the church. The book of James in the Bible has a great statement about hypocrisy and greatly defines how the hypocrisy was affecting the rest of the people. It states “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that --- and shudder.” (Bible, James 2: 14-19) …show more content…
It has been stated that “greed is the root of all evil” and the Pardoner even preaches this in his sermon that he preaches each and every time and has down by memory. In the prologue that the Pardoner gives of himself, he states that “I preach, as you have heard me say before, And tell a hundred lying mockeries more. I take great pains, and stretching out my neck To east and west I crane about and peck Just like a pigeon sitting on a barn. My hands and tongue together spin the yarn And all my antics are a joy to see. The curse of avarice and cupidity Is all my sermon, for it frees the pelf. Out come the pence, and specially for myself, For my exclusive purpose is to win And not at all to castigate their sin. Once dead what matter how their souls may fare? They can go blackberrying, for all I care!” What the Pardoner is pretty much saying is that he preaches against greed and doing things for self gain, yet he turns around and does his preaching for greed and gain. He can make money off of the individuals that are brought to him so he can forgive them of their sins. The Pardoner says that this whole thing is like a game to him and he doesn’t honestly care what happens to people’s souls after they die. He only wants to make money and benefit at the expense of other individuals. There is extreme satire in the preaching’s of the Pardoner. He doesn’t